Senet

How to play Senet

From the book's pages

The rules are Gustave Jequier's, confirmed in the main by Edgar B. Pusch; no Egyptian source says exactly how Senet was played.

• Two players with five pieces each, which go round the board as an ox draws the plough: squares 1–10 to the right, 11–20 back, 21–30 to the right again. At the start the pieces stand on 1–10, the white ones on odd numbers and the black ones on even.
• The dice are four two-sided sticks: one white side up gives 1, two give 2, three give 3, four give 4, and four black give 6.
• The players throw in turn until one gets a 1. Whoever gets it moves black from square 10 to 11, and throws again. After a 1, 4 or 6 a piece is moved that many squares and the thrower throws again; a two or a three is moved, and then it is the opponent's turn.
• If a piece lands on a square where one of the opponent's stands, it is attacked and moved to the square the attacker came from. Two of the same colour cannot stand on the same square. Two standing next to each other protect each other from attack. Three in a row are a blockade: they can neither be attacked nor passed by the opponent, but do not block their own pieces.
• If a throw cannot be used forward, it must be used to move a piece backward, to an empty square. If neither forward nor backward is possible, the turn passes.
• Square 27, marked with an X, is the trap: a piece that lands there is moved back to square 1, or to the first free square. On 26, 28, 29 and 30 no piece can be attacked.
• When all of a player's pieces are in the third row, they can be taken off the board, with throws that bring them exactly to square 30. If a piece is sent back, it must get up to the third row again before any more are taken off.
• The first to get all their pieces off has won. In a series of games the winner gets one point for each enemy piece in the third row, two for each in the second and three for each in the first.

My choices

• Against the machine you throw for the start as the book says; whoever gets a 1 becomes black. That is why your colour is not chosen in advance.
• The opponent's first move «from square 9»: the book says in the same sentence that he may move any piece, so only black's opening 10 → 11 is forced.
• A piece already standing on square 30 when all are in the third row is taken off with any throw.
• Backward applies only when no piece can go forward, and never to an occupied square, as the book says; a blockade does not stop a piece going backward.
• The machine picks its moves by a simple weighing: forward, in pairs, on the safe squares, away from the trap and off.

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